London Town
by bad-wolf-bay
Summary: Just how was she going to handle being in his city? Post S7


_Seems like yesterday when I saw your face,_

The river rushed below the bridge, coming in from the North Sea pushing its way through the capital, pulling and pushing through each wave, dragging pebbles and centuries of rubbish backwards and forwards, ending up on the shore or the river bed. The setting sun glazed the surface of the murky waters, turning it green instead of filthy brown, with no one to watch as the city went about its business as they always had done.

No one took any notice of the young woman watching the flow of the river, her arms dangling over the edge of the bridge. It wasn't an uncommon sight, one minute they were there, the next…they all looked the same, haggard, old before their time with the same haunted look in their eyes, and weary of the life they'd been dealt. The world would go on with or without their contribution. The cars would still beep their horns all through the night, pushing through the jams of central London, leering at the whores and underage girls clattering across the pavement. Men and women would still work all the hours of the day, in their business suits and laptops, with their Bluetooth attached to their ears. Children would still go missing, while others scored high marks in exams and came home smiling from ear to ear with eager stories to tell. Japanese tourist would still beat the rest to the attractions, standing in the way taking picture after picture jabbering away excitedly. The world will still live and die.

_You told me how proud you were, but I walked away._

The blonde woman sighed and looked around her, feeling the barest bit of comfort at the now familiar sights. The River Thames wound itself through the centre of the ancient city, meandering through, bending back on itself with bridge after bridge closing the gap between north and south. Looking east, the Tower of London loomed on the skyline, the white tower blood red in the last rays of the sun, shedding an eerie feeling of the fear once felt at the very sight of the tower. Westwards lay the iconic Big Ben, still chiming every hour; parliament overlooks the river, the history books full of treason and death from Guy Fawkes attempting to blow up James I to Charles I storming a session of Parliament.

This was her routine now, ever since she had decided to join Giles in restoring the Watchers Council in England; she watched and walked, wondering about the history, the people of the city she now called home. No one had questioned her choice, they had all run; Xander for Cleveland and Willow to Rome, but at a moments notice came back to England without Kennedy to stay with the coven in Devon. Dawn had been torn, having wanted to visit Rome, but the pull to England was stronger and finally won out, the same pull that had enticed the slayer, to see for themselves the country that had produced their oldest and closest friend and lover, albeit if society had moved on. No longer were the streets crowded with such noise and filth, from horse drawn carriages for the wealthy, to the many orphaned children running the streets with nimble hands; the world that was the muse for Dickens's 'Oliver Twist.'

_If only I knew what I know today, ooh, ohh._

As darkness fell and the chill of another October, the sounds changed from the hum of a population on the move constantly, but to a world filled with black cabs filled with whores and escorts, the rich and poor both walking the streets to parties and shop doors. Buffy joined in the throng, walking alone watching the world thinking this was not that far from 'his' world. There were still prostitutes hiding in the shadows waiting for men, respectable men such as he had once been; proper women were still already inside behind closed doors having their own private parties; dreams where still made and broken, from death to hurtful truths. But there was still nothing to suggest that he had twice been born here, he had lived and loved; there were only the death certificates' left here to prove that he had been torn from his world of money and class, of lights and high society, of comfort and safety – to a world of darkness he had been moulded to fit into by others born to it, when he barely moulded to it as much as he had to the living. The city had seen it all and he had left it behind and now she was bringing him home. He could rest in peace.

_I would hold you in my arms. I would take the pain away._

The survivors drove to LA, feeling numb in the wake of their victory, the losses outweighing the joy. The scoobies hadn't said a word; Giles had simply driven and kept driving. They hadn't commented on Angel and his evil law firm, they'd simply been given rooms and had stayed in them, sleeping away the pain they weren't feeling. Angel sent Giles and the potentials to the Hyperion with Weasly, Faith taking Robin to a hospital. The trio didn't notice as the next few days passed as the potentials were slowly being flown home, one by one and all with a known watcher, most had been in training, to go to, each with a letter explaining what had and was now happening. Kennedy remained, not having seen Willow, and too stubborn to leave, wanting to be there for Willow and not understanding or truly caring why the witch was grieving so, for Buffy, Xander and even Dawn, the younger slayer could understand. When the time came to finally update Angel and his team on what had happened in Sunnydale, the trio came out of their rooms only just in a change of cloths but their eyes were still glazed and non responsive, so Giles spoke. The watcher spoke of how Spike had come back into their lives, leaving out how and why he had left in the first place, of how they had come to realise The First was playing with him, right through to end with Buffy telling everyone for the first time how the master vampire had saved the world. To which Angel tried to make some witty retorts, to which the scoobies finally snapped out of it. Willow broke first and threw a ball of pure energy at the window enough to break it letting direct sunlight in warming Angels toes before he stepped back. The team stood frozen for a moment before Xander spoke up quietly, 'He was a better man than you.' The compassion the aged vampire had felt for the group quickly left him when it became clear that even his worst associated thought better of his grand childe than of him, the supposed love of this vampire's life. So Angel got angry back. He didn't mention Cordelia.

He flipped and went off, had they forgotten who Spike, William the Bloody was? He had shoved railroad spikes through people's heads, he'd been the lover of an insane woman for over a century, and he'd killed two slayers! He didn't have a soul. The clincher. The slayer's calm broke.

'He had a soul; he fought through trials to get one, to be the man he believed I deserved. He LOVED me; he FOUGHT for me and by my side! Everything he did was out of passion and love, whether it was for his mother, Drusilla or me. His blood may not have gone in the direction of his head, but it always came from his heart! He was the most human vampire I've ever met; his lived for more than blood and the kill. William the Bloody at his worst was when he was with you! Big surprise! Drusilla killed the man, but you made him a monster! But even at that you failed for the man was still there, hidden by the practically transparent mask of the 'big bad', and I hated him because of you! It took him dusting as I held his hand for me to realise what I'd been so scared of…why he could love me without the soul yet Angelus couldn't. Right then and now I don't give a damn, because he still loved me and because of you he died not believe me when I finally realised I love him! I – LOVE – HIM! I don't give a crap that you left to give a normal life. Have you forgotten who I am? I'm the slayer you pounce, I'm not normal! I'm not going to have a normal life, ever! And Spike loved all of me; he loved who I am as the slayer and the Buffy who loves watching Thelma and Louise with her mother. He was the only one who was there for me after I died and was brought back, he stayed in Sunnydale with people who couldn't stand him to look after Dawn because he promised, no other reason such as say, trying to get into my pants! He understood me, he gave me strength in the last days, his 'bloody' accent let me stop and think, to relax and be myself with him. He had nothing on you Angelus, he was still the nervous and proper Victorian man he was in a world that has changed, and now it's too sodding late for me to tell him I love him for it!'

_Thanks for all you've done, forgive all your mistakes._

The gang left the following morning, all going to England to plan what was next. They left Angel to his extra brooding and fuming in his office, Buffy feeling his eyes bore into the back of her head as they left the building. After her outburst, they had all grouped around her, clearly showing they where all behind her and had buried the past in the crater of Sunnydale.

The first few weeks though hadn't been peachy between the old friends. Giles was rarely around as he went about rebuilding the Council, keeping in constant contact with the watchers he'd assigned to the potentials, and had new slayers being found on an almost daily basis. Dawn had enrolled at Kings College and was trying to fit her new life and friends in with her emotionally numb family, but the group hid themselves behind the confines of the council building. Xander spent the weeks staring into space, muttering the words that used to call Anyanka. Now they had finally stopped and could breathe the end of their world as they knew it finally hit. Willow stayed active, mainly to keep out of the way of the suddenly neurotically overpowering Kennedy, but also to keep her mind off the surge of magic still powering through her system. After the spell in the hellmouth, extreme emotions still made her visibly go either pure goddess or evil vein Willow for a few minutes. At first she had freaked, but the coven had calmed her mind, it was simply a side effect of using that much power all at once. Willow was to be fine, but in the meantime she was never still. Buffy was nowhere and everywhere, she walked noiselessly around the building, staring out any window emotionless. Builders and demons setting up wards, the odd slayer that was around with their watchers all walked past her not taking any notice. She smiled Dawn to school each morning and nodded her return, not once reaching out.

_There's nothing I wouldn't do to hear your voice again,_

It took three months and a final confrontation of feelings that shook the group into action. Xander left for Cleveland, taking Faith and a now healed Robin with him. Another hellmouth needed him and he needed the distraction. Giles and the coven convinced Willow to visit the coven in Rome, it would do her a world of good, it was major excitement for the nerdy Willow Giles had first met, so many years before, he hoped it would bring back some of the calm she once had; or it had been her innocence, that he could now see just how much of it they had all lost. Kennedy was to go with her, much to the witch's quiet disappointment; the tension between the couple had become unbearable, so much so that even Buffy and Xander commented to each other on the matter. The young slayer didn't like the rest of the scoobies, she hadn't liked how they treated Willow back in Sunnydale and liked it even less in London. Kennedy was blind to the way the trio worked, she didn't understand much less want to, how they had grown up together through the last 7 years, and how along the way they had each learned how to cope with what had been thrown had them. She had never liked how they spoke of old...dead...friends, of stories she hadn't been there for and it angered her at being left out so and more so at Willow for not noticing she was doing it. The others didn't like Kennedy for how she thought like this, they had always seen her as pushy, overpowering, had to be at the centre of attention and someone who despised not being in control and not for any good reason, like as a leader. Annoying things in a girl, bad things for a slayer. But it was the couple's final chance. The Summers sisters carried on as they had in the first few weeks, but their emotions slipped further and further apart; Dawn was fitting in more and more, just like she always did, but this time she truly was just a girl with no ulterior creation. But Buffy, the oldest slayer, the 'original' slayer fell deeper and deeper into a depression no one was truly seeing, each with their own demons still hunting them. She hid to the upper floors, which still needed to be fixed up, old windows that hadn't been changed in over a century filtered in the light, burning her pale skin if she ventured from the shadows. She was rarely seen by anyone but Dawn who had the knack of finding her wherever she hid, but she didn't speak, the youngest Summers did all the talking, even if was a book she had to read, or an essay she was writing, or simply what she had done that day. The more time Dawn spent in the capital, the more English she picked up, the slang used without people realizing they're using it, the closer she got to making Buffy crumble.

It happened a week before they split, the whole group had been in the kitchen, Willow had been cooking, Dawn doing her homework, Buffy and Xander spoke quietly while Giles sat in a corner still reading and wiping his glasses as the words didn't make sense the first time. All was quite as dinner was served, cups of Earl Grey handed out, the only noise being the sounds of cutlery and the clatter of cups. This was the way it had gone for the last couple of weeks, a routine they had unconsciously fallen into. But tonight, it changed, after dinner Dawn carried on with her essay, Giles went back to his book, Willow went about the washing up, Buffy and Xander fell silent; but when the cup Dawn had gone to pick up fell, crashing to the floor, small pieces of china shattering across the large room and the sound of an American mixed highly with a British accent filled the room with an achingly familiar 'Sodding hell!' the slayer collapsed to her knees as sobs wracked her body.

Giles had gone into father mode instantly, slipping to the floor and pulling his slayer onto his lap and rocked her quietly, whispering words into her ear as she clung to him pouring out her soul. The barrier broke and the rest joined them, huddled together on the floor, crying together, giving and receiving strength as they grieved for all their loved ones taken over the years, by all means of hell.

They talked each in turn and they listened. They all heard things they didn't like and in turn it quickly came to Buffy and Spike and quietly she spoke. She stood by what she had said in LA, to Xander's anger she spoke of her forgiveness of the bathroom incident, and to counter the anger coming from her friend, she admitted everything she had done to him. Silence followed. She spoke of her heartache, of leaving him there when he hadn't believed her; her last chance to tell him how she had truly felt all along and he hadn't believed her. Dawn had yelled and cried at her sister, Xander tried to speak against it, but only muttered 'hypercritic' to himself. It made them smile. Willow admitted she had known something was going on; she spoke quietly much like Tara had done, but they listened. Willow had seen the way Buffy had acted around the vampire, especially since he had returned with his soul, but it was the shared looks, small smiles and lingering touches that had given them away. She looked Buffy in the eye and was smiling as she said she had never seen anyone look at each other the way they had, not to Angel, and not to Drusilla, they had been content with each other, their very presence a calm in the storm; they had accepted each other for who they were, Buffy and the Slayer; William and Spike – only such love and trust came that acceptance.

_Sometimes I wanna call you but I know you won't be there._

The 7th time Giles caught her holding the phone with her old number dialled, her finger ready to call, but her eyes fixated out the window moving over the horizon trying to memorize the landscape of London, he called enough is enough. It had been three months since the battle and only two since the others had left. Instead of starting to move on after the heart to heart they had all shared, Buffy just got worse. She closed herself off, said less, ate even less and hadn't moved from the corner window for three days. Giles shook her hard until she turned her head and focused on him. He shoved a map of the city and £500 into her hand, taking the phone from her now lax grip, and told her gently but firmly to take in London from the outside. She had admitted in the kitchen that now seemed so long ago, that she was afraid about being here. It had been his home, long ago, he had walked the streets and loved the famous sites, but this wasn't his London anymore, not quite. It was just like him in its way; it had never changed over the years despite the different masks it wears. But now Giles was forcing her out the door, to see his world, or as close as she would get. The only thing missing was his hand in hers, his soft accent fitting in with everyone around her, talking her socks off about everything from the two princes in the tower, who were murdered by their uncle, the usurper king Richard III in the C15th during the turbulent War of the Roses. He would tell her about the greatest English poet William Shakespeare and his Globe Theatre, how the Thames used to freeze enough to skate upon, how he must have woken to the Big Ben each morning, the sounds of the Suffragette movement and probably have agreed with them. The dark alleys of the east end riddled with bodies in the walls, from centuries of crime, and crime to come, Jack the Ripper, the myth of Sweeny Todd and his barber shop on Fleet Street, Bedlam and the scientific experiments carried out on inmates, that would become the Imperial War Museum; the British Museum that was being stuffed full with Ancient Egyptian artefacts being mass excavated, that was his haven. No one could tell her these stories anymore, except for the guidebooks, and she soaked them up all the same.

_Oh, I'm sorry for blaming you_

_For everything I just couldn't do_

_And I've hurt myself by hurting you._

Instead of not getting her out, now she was never in. Dawn was torn between hating her older sister and grieving with her. The youngest Summer's knew what was going through her mind, and knew they were slowly getting better, for each time Buffy came home, another site crossed off on her map, her eyes lit up just a bit more. Giles only watched as his girls coped, Dawn threw herself to her A Levels and was even looking at universities, having decided to stay in England. But without her best friends and the latest upheaval, Buffy looked to be going under.

_Some days I feel broke inside but I won't admit,_

_Sometimes I just wanna hide 'cause it's you I miss_

Living in England, being surrounded by the hustle and bustle of London, and most of all, the accent was slowly killing her, while at the same heightening her curiosity of where her lover had come from. She began looking for clues everywhere; a date around or before 1880, plaques on buildings, buildings built, blue plaques of people he might have known. She marched from church to church, pulling at their records knowing nothing else except his name and date of death. Knowing only that and just about what he looked like as a Victorian man kept her going, but not knowing where he had lived, or even his full name both bewildered her and distraught her. She ended up back at the council in the arms of Giles in hysterical tears more often than not over the space of a couple of months. Before IT arrived and turned their world upside down.

_And it's so hard to say goodbye when it comes to this, ohh_

Doyle turned up unexpectedly and waited for 39 hours until Buffy walked through the door. Giles and Dawn stayed with him in what had become Giles' study and at a very wet 3am Buffy confidently walked through the door, not showing her hesitation and worry. The demon sniffed and handed her a thick pile of parchment envelopes, thickly saying 'I'm just the messenger' and smiled weakly at her before disappearing, his eyes filled with raw sadness, aimed at her and that stayed with her.

Buffy simply sat in a leather chair, holding the pile in both hands as Dawn and Giles watched her holding their breath. Undoing the red ribbon holding the envelopes together, she ran her fingers softly over the ink, the elegant swirly letters of her name on the front, with 'Read This First' underneath. Frowning slightly she turned it over and broke the seal, opening it up and reading the first few lines her face blanched and tears fell.

_Would you tell me I was wrong? Would you help me understand?_

More tears and swearing of her own occurred as Dawn sat at her feet and Giles held her tight as she read through the first letter, and the next and the next before it completely sank in with the last envelope. Fresh ink stared back at her, daring her to object, the cold words sat on the page, perfectly in the middle giving no comfort.

'_The Last Will and Testament of William James Pratte'_

Xander and Willow flew back to London immediately and held her as she read out his will over and over. They found out he had been born on 12 March 1856 and had died on 19 October 1880. He had lived in a very upper class area of London near the British Museum. And he had been wealthy. Very wealthy. He had taken over his dead fathers business at 21, and he had a large estate in Derbyshire. The money he had owned when he was alive they hadn't dared to calculate. They were all surprised but not overly shocked at reading that he had rewritten his will not long before the battle in Sunnydale and had left _everything_ to Buffy and Dawn; his belongings, his London house, his estate and his money, every last shilling. Whilst Buffy took this in, Giles handed out the letters addressed to the others; Dawn, Willow, Xander and even himself. The one for Anya he simply gave to Xander who put it in an inside pocket never to be read. Silence overtook them for hours as thoughts ran through their minds. Buffy kept re-reading the first letter, his last letter, and smiled at the ideas she had forgotten they had talked about, but he hadn't. He even gave her pointers, obviously he had been a rather good businessman in his day, but what truly made her smile and her heart grow fonder was that even then, he had known, and had the hindsight to leave these, his thoughts, his feelings she hadn't let him show, but knowing if she was to ever read these she would have no choice but to see, he had known in the giving her his belongings, his very life, that he wasn't going to make it, yet at the very end he had still been thinking about her, and in the silence she found herself falling in love with him just a bit more.

_Are you looking down upon me? Are you proud of who I am?_

It took a couple of months, but eventually the large and comfortable Victorian Queen Anne house had been modernised. It had stood empty for over 120 years and yet when she had first walked its rooms she could still smell the lavender that had been his mothers smell in the day room. The faint dusky smell of well loved books filled the first floor as the library stood across most of the floor with only a small study linked. She walked the two rooms, running her fingers over the leather bound volumes, taking in the large mahogany desk and dark leather chair, the writing equipment still waiting for his return, papers had yellowed with age, but it was obvious he had loved these rooms. His room made her cry. The master bedroom was just a typical Victorian bedroom, sparse, but what furniture there was, was acceptable for his status. But it was these small things, the large elegant mahogany 4-poster bed, with Indian silk sheets and drapes, ornate candle sticks lined the fire place and his bed side along with a book of William Blake's poetry and a soft leather journal; made her think only of his crypt that they had fought and loved in, and what he had been trying to do; show himself.

No electricity or modern plumping filled the house, but he had given her strict instructions to change that. He had wanted it to be her home, it had been a never to be uttered wish to show her this, to take her hand and walk across the threshold of a home he hadn't seen in over a century, her hand to squeeze as the past rushed over him, to speak stories no one knew but him. He had wanted to show her his London, and now she was, with his hand guiding her from the grave, in a long lost style of writing her had never forgotten.

_There's nothing I wouldn't do to have just one more chance_

_To look into your eyes and see you looking back._

When Christmas came, the scoobies filled the large home with enough room for them all to stay, even Faith who showed, minus Robin, who hadn't been able to stomach it. Kennedy was also absent, apparently she had left when Willow hadn't returned immediately. Dawn decided to kip in with Buffy in the master room, letting Willow and Faith enjoy Dawns finally grown up room, while the men had to stay in the converted attic room, as the third room on the second floor was still locked and nothing from Spike's letters spoke of it. It remained the way it had always been.

The house was decorated to the brim, a very tall, rounded and real Christmas tree stood proudly in the bay window of the day turned living room, and the large fire place crackled with a small fire ready to burn all night, and presents that filled the entirety of the alcove window had the whole house in a childlike excitement for the season. The smell of constant cooking came from the large kitchen on the ground floor, filled the entire house as the cook Buffy had employed spent hours singing cheerily to the radio and cooking the first of many Christmas dinners to remember. She even got the Summers women into the kitchen and helping and became so determined to make a cook out of the slayer that the rest had a bet on how quickly Buffy threw a slayer strop and refused. All in the spirit of the season of course.

For the rest of the time, Buffy hid away in the library and study, pouring over his letters, and then his books, finding journal from when he was but a small child. She left those alone; instead she sat legs stretched in front of her in the window seat of the wide French window that faced the world and immersed herself in his world and his world's views on history and poetry that had once been his escape. But the thought that everything was slipping into place with oiled ease continued to worry her throughout the season.

_Oh, I'm sorry for blaming you_

_For everything I just couldn't do_

_And I've hurt myself by hurting you._

With the New Year came the eventual breaking of the group, back to their respective parts of the world, even Giles refused the invitation to stay longer, but there was still much work to do within the Council, and Dawn quickly started back at school and the house fell silent. So began the thorough search.

For two months she searched from attic to cellar, she found hidden walkways between room, behind the walls, staircases leading up and down the house, away from the main bustle of the household; she walked them, she found each entrance to rooms and lost herself in the past of servants scurrying about the house. From trunks in corners of hidden rooms she found photographs, lots of them. Placing them on the floor and looking closely at each one she picked out a chronology and set it out, she was looking at his life. From the first which could only have been his parents holding a very young William for his first picture, which a letter with the pictures said had been taken for the paper. The rest ranged from public engagements, to school photo's, a graduation from Oxford photo and the ones she looked at most carefully, the family portraits. He looked just like his father, from the soft curly hair to the chiselled cheekbones, and despite the photographs being in black and white, the same piercing blue eyes. The older man was sterner than his son whose stance even in the stiff upper lip Victorian era was much softer, much like his mother, the woman who was always sitting beside her husband, a small smile gracing her full face. Underneath the pile of photographs were letters, most to and from people she had no idea of, but at the top she discovered his handwriting. She was reading them before she realised what she was doing. He was in India writing home, apparently part of his father's business dealt with plantation owners in the New World, in the barbaric parts of the British Empire. He was loving the country, but missing home and her, the girl he was writing to. Buffy was about to fold the letter away when a key fell out of the envelope. It was large and had ornate swirls at the end, but she knew which door it would open.

She slept well that night for the first time in almost a year; a small smile graced her lips as she slid in between the sheets, her fingers whispering over his face in the last picture taken of him, barely weeks before his death, the closest he had been to the vampire he became in physique. She stared at it for a while, thinking how underneath all the pompous rules he had to live his life by, and the black Goth and bleached hair, the man hadn't changed. Then on a less serious thought, her mind lead her to had he always looked that good as human, then thought he must have done and looking back at the picture she couldn't quite see how the quiet William could have managed that. But she let sleep overcome her before she carried on that path, and in the stillness of the house she could almost feel him watching over her, smiling softly at something just out of shot.

_If I had just one more day_

_I would tell you how much I've missed you_

_Since you've been away_

The next day Buffy was back at the council, but this time with an agenda. She had re-read all his letters again and finally felt she was ready. She spoke to Giles of her idea and he was overjoyed, although probably more at her actively getting out there and coming back the world, but as she spoke more of her plan he truly felt she was healing and silently sent a prayer to wherever the vampire had gone, for ever looking after her, even in death.

_Oh it's dangerous_

_It's so out of line_

_To try and turn back time._

Six weeks later, at a manor house in the middle of Derbyshire, another house was full of slayers in training. Girls of all ages, whether they were just the next generation of potentials, or full slayers that had been found over the last year and needed training, had been brought to England, along with their watchers. Giles and the older watchers had set up the watchers academy again and training the fresh blood on the male side of the deal, while the slayers were sent to Buffy to gain basic training, and ogling at their very own unconventional Mr Darcy and Elizabeth, which Buffy had to go and read before she could laugh with them; before sending them off again around the world with their watchers to learn the rest together, while still coming back to the motherland, no one was left to fend for themselves once they were found.

The gang were brought together as much as their schedules and apocalypses' allowed, so when they managed to meet in London in early March, Buffy thought it was finally time.

_I'm sorry for blaming you_

_For everything I just couldn't do_

_And I've hurt myself_

_By blaming you._

In between training slayers and doing slaying of her own, Buffy had also leant her hand to writing. She had taken his journal from his London library and brought them to Derbyshire and in between training she had read them all, and found the places he had hidden his poetry throughout the years, and even the ones he had sent back from Sunnydale in the years she had known him, and in this she truly felt like she was knowing the real him, the real William behind Spike, but also Spike himself. Both men were as real as each other and both had always been alive and both had felt everything, and both had loved her.

So when the 12 March came around, the scoobies had not been surprised when she said they were off to visit him. She picked flowers from the front garden and they walked the short distance to the cemetery. They had to stop and ask exactly his whereabouts within the grounds, but he wasn't hard to find. Just off the main path he lay, his stone stood as tall and grand as ever, the engraving weathered slightly, and Buffy simply refused Willows offer to 'freshen' it up, the stone represented him as a whole, nowhere near perfect, but perfect enough. Xander held onto Dawn tightly, and couldn't help but laugh at the sky when reading the gravestone next to Spike's. _'Summer Anne Pratte'_ daughter to the couple next to her, and sister to their William. The irony very much not lost of any of them. While they joked that it wasn't a very Victorian name, Buffy quietly asked Willow to do one engraving, and they stood in silence as the words carved themselves into the stone, forever and permanently acknowledging them, letting them finally, rest in peace.

'_Somewhere, between all our laughs, _

_Long talks, stupid fights and all our jokes,_

_I fell in love.'_

Song: Hurt by Christina Aguilera


End file.
